Posts: 6

1. Miami-Dade TV Video

   16.Apr.07, 20:42 EDT
   
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   The Reclamation Project Mangroves are at the heart of artist Xavier Cortada’s collaborative eco-art project that explores our ability to coexist with the natural world.

2. The Reclamation Project: Mangroves to “reclaim” South Beach during Art Basel 2006

   12.Apr.07, 21:45 EDT
   
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   The Reclamation Project: Mangroves to “reclaim” South Beach during Art Basel 2006 Miami Beach, FL ---October 2006--- Miami artist Xavier Cortada is working with volunteers to on Miami Beach to raise environmental awareness through the creation of a major public art project called The Reclamation Project. The artist will dramatize the destruction of the native mangrove forest with an installation consisting of over 2,500 mangrove seedlings in clear cups to be displayed in the windows of South Beach business from November through January. At the end of the project, the seedlings will be collected and used to reforest a portion of Biscayne Bay. To learn more about the project including volunteer opportunities and event dates and locations, see www.reclamationproject.net. In a 1915 photo, Miami Beach founder Carl Fisher poses with Rosie the elephant as they help clear the “swamps” to make way for Lincoln Road. We now know that these mangrove forests are vital to establishing a healthy habitat for marine life, birds and other animals. Through the project, Cortada hopes “to remind us we must learn to coexist with nature in our urban settings, instead of relegating it to nature preserves.” Click here for the entire press release

3. Seeds of Change

   12.Apr.07, 21:44 EDT
   
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   Seeds of Change. By Rashida Bartley. Published on October 29, 2006 in The Miami Herald - Neighbors (cover story), Miami, FL Click here to read the article

4. Hunt for Mangrove Seedlings

   12.Apr.07, 21:44 EDT
   
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   Hunt for Mangrove Seedlings Miami Herald - October 19, 2006 - 3B Metro & State Volunteer Sean Connett hunts for mangrove seedlings in Key Biscayne Wednesday as part of the Reclamation Project, a public environmental arts effort created by artist Xavier Cortada. Volunteers for the project place the seedlings in water and distribute them to businesses on Lincoln Road in South Beach, where they will remain through January. The seeds then will be replanted along Biscayne Bay..

5. Planting for Life

   12.Apr.07, 21:43 EDT
   
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   Planting for Life CultureSurge - Artburst Written by Anne Tschida category305.com http://www.category305.com/artburst/xavier-cortadas-reclaimation.php Thursday, 09 November 2006 Xavier Cortada's been up to some interesting social actions lately. First off, at the Science Museum (which sometimes falls under the arts radar, and it shouldn't), the Cubamian with the big heart has a quirky installation commemorating, of all things, 50 years of a U.S. presence on the South Pole. "The Markers" is a set of 50 differently colored flags, each one relating to an important event of every year of the last half century. Actually, according to the artist, the flags "mark the passage of time by exploring important events that have moved the world forward." "Move" is the critical word here, as Cortada is going to take the markers in January to …. the South Pole. He'll place them exactly where the Pole stood each year—it moves 9.9 meters annually, in the same direction. That's life on a glacier. His flags will note things such as Sputnik's orbit of the earth (1957); the election of the first woman to lead the world's biggest democracy – Indira Gandhi (1966); the discovery of our earliest ancestor, Lucy (1974); the year Prozac was put on the market (1987); and the year Spain banned all discrimination based on sexual orientation (2005). And how can the tropical trooper afford such an icy excursion? As an award recipient of the — yes you're reading this right — National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer Program. [In conjunction with this show, the Science Museum is showing photography from the region, including awe-inspiring images of the otherworldly landscape and the creatures that inhabit it – penguins and U.S. scientists both.] Back on our peninsula, Cortada is highlighting more native movement, with his "Reclamation Project." He is "planting" mangrove shoots, in clear cups with water, all over South Beach in a symbolic effort to take the concrete land back to its original state. (It's his Art Basel project.) As Cortada relates, a 1915 photograph was one inspiration, showing as it did Miami Beach founder Carl Fisher posing with Rosie the Elephant, clearing the "swamps" to pave the way for Lincoln Road. Mangrove forests helped keep the sandy earth in place, as well as sustain a healthy eco-system, and he wants his project "to remind us we must learn to coexist with nature in our urban settings, instead of relegating it to nature preserves." Then he will take this show on the road. The 2,600 mangrove seedlings, through an effort of an all-volunteer eco-army, will be shipped over to Key Biscayne starting mid-December and really planted as part of a reforestation plan. Behind this excursion are Citizens for a Better Florida and DERM, among others. Wanna do some planting? Contact coordinator@reclamationproject.net "The Markers" will be planted at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium through Dec. 11, 3280 South Miami Ave., Miami. "The Reclamation Project" will be planted around South Beach from mid-November through Dec. 17.

6. Pretty as a Picture

   12.Apr.07, 21:42 EDT
   
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   Pretty as a Picture: Artist Xavier Cortada is bringing back the mangroves. By Vanessa Garcia. Published by The New Times on December 7th, 2006 in Miami, FL. Click here to read the article